1. IE 7 includes tabbed browsing, a capability that Firefox and Opera have offered for a while.

2. IE 7 has an integrated search box similar to that in Firefox and Opera.

3. Both IE 7 and Firefox 1.5 offer an easy method for deleting personal browsing data (browser cache, URL history, saved forms) via one menu option. The feature already exists in Opera 8.5.

4. Firefox 1.5 offer automatic updates similar to IE.

5. Opera comes with several advanced features that you can get in Firefox only with add-ons, and that IE lacks entirely.

Erik Larkin compares the three most popular browser on earth – Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1, Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 1, and Opera 9 Preview 1. He also mentions Flock, a social browsing application. Flock rethinks the browser as a tool for creating Weblogs, organizing bookmarks and connecting with others online.

IE 7: The new Phishing Filter in IE aims to warn users if they visit a known or potential phishing site–a function previously available only via third-party toolbars.

Firefox 1.5: Firefox 1.5 includes drag-and-drop tab reordering. The new Auto-update process is streamlined and smooth.

Opera 9: Users can choose which Web sites can run JavaScript or display images. And the impressive built-in RSS feed handler now supports Atom 1.0. However, Opera has no plans to introduce Firefox-like extensions, so if you don’t like the way it does something, you’re stuck.

Browser Market Share: Though IE has been losing market share, it remains dominant yet. The number of users jumping to Firefox has slowed recently leading some experts to suggest only a finite number of people are willing or able to try an alternate browser.

Read full story at PCWorld – Browser Face-Off

Konqueror

1. Click on the Settings-menu in Konqueror
2. Click on the Configure Konqueror… item in the menu – a new window opens
3. Click on Cookies on the left side (you might have to scroll first)
4. Set Accept all cookies by default.
5. Save changes by clicking Ok.

Lynx

1. Press O for Options
2. Look for General Preferences and Cookies (!)
3. Set it to either ask user or accept all (more convenient)
4. Save changes by selecting Accept Change

Mac IE 5.x

1. Click Edit
2. Select Preferences
3. Under the Receiving Files option, select Cookies
4. Under “When receiving cookies:” select the desired level of cookie acceptance
5. Under “When receiving cookies:” select the desired level of cookie acceptance
6. Click OK to finish

Mac IE 4.x

1. Go to My AOL on the menu bar
2. Pick WWW
3. Go to the Advanced Settings option on the Category menu
4. Click “Cookies”
5. When receiving cookies: Click “Never Ask”
6. Click OK

Internet Explorer 7

1. Open your browser, and select Internet Options from the Tools menu at the top.
2. Now on the option screen select the Privacy tab.
3. Make sure the slider is not set to “Block All Cookies”.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0

1. Select “Internet Options” from the Tools menu.
2. Click on the “Privacy” tab.
3. Click the “Default” button (or manually slide the bar down to “Medium”) under “Settings”.
4. Click “OK”.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x

1. Select “Internet Options” from the Tools menu.
2. Click on the “Security” tab.
3. Click the “Custom Level” button.
4. Scroll down to the “Cookies” section.
5. To enable:
   1. Set “Allow cookies that are stored on your computer” to “Enable”.
   2. Set “Allow per-session cookies” to “Enable”.
6. Click “OK”.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x

1. Select “Internet Options” from the View menu.
2. Click on the “Advanced” tab.
3. Scroll down to find “Cookies” within the “Security” section.
4. To enable:
   1. Select “Always accept cookies”.
5. Click “OK”.

Mozilla Firefox (1.0 final release and earlier)

1. Go to the “Tools” menu.
2. Select “Options”.
3. Select the “Privacy” icon in the left panel.
4. Check the box corresponding to “Allow sites to set cookies”.
5. Click “OK” to save changes.

Netscape 7.1/Mozilla 5.0

1. Select “Preferences” from the Edit menu.
2. Click on the arrow next to “Privacy & Security” in the scrolling window to expand.
3. Under “Privacy & Security”, select “Cookies.”
4. Select “Enable all cookies”.
5. Click “OK”.

Netscape Communicator 4.x

1. Select “Preferences” from the Edit menu.
2. Find the “Cookies” section in the “Advanced” category.
3. To enable:
   1. Select “Accept all cookies” (or “Enable all cookies”).
4. Click “OK”.

Opera 7.x

1. Click on the Tools-menu in Opera
2. Click on the Preferences… item in the menu – a new window opens
3. Click on the Privacy selection near the bottom left of the window.
4. The Enable cookies checkbox must be checked, and Accept all cookies should be selected in the “Normal cookies” drop-down.
5. Save changes by clicking Ok.

Opera 9.x

1. Click on the Tools-menu in Opera
2. Click on the Preferences… item in the menu – a new window opens
3. Click on the Advanced selection on the top of the window. Then select Cookies from the left hand side
4. The Enable cookies checkbox must be checked, and Accept cookies should be selected
5. Save changes by clicking Ok.

Safari

1. Click on the Safari-menu in Safari
2. Click on the Preferences… item in the menu – a new window opens
3. Click on the Security icon near the top of the window.
4. Under Accept Cookies the Always or Only from sites you navigate to must be selected.
5. Save changes by clicking Ok.

Reduce the Image Quality:
Although this sounds like a disadvantage, it actually is not since digital pictures usually have a far higher resolution than any computer monitor can display. By reducing the resolution, or the number of pixels displayed per square inch (dpi), you can effectively optimize the image for both display and download purposes.

Crop Images:
Photos and other graphics often have more surrounding detail than is needed for your purpose. Zero in on the subject of your picture by cropping away any unnecessary white space or clutter. This will reduce the picture size (and load time) while focusing the visual impact directly on the subject matter.

Resize Images:
This one is easy. Why post a huge photo on a web page when a smaller one will serve just as well? Just resize the height and width of the photo in whatever graphics program you use on your computer before uploading it to your server. Do NOT simply reduce the height and width dimensions in your html code as this continues to use the huge file size and merely displays it in a smaller area of the page.

Image Optimizing Tools:
There are some excellent tools available for optimizing images, and one of the best is Irfanview, at http://www.irfanview.com, a free download that enables quick and easy image compression, cropping and resizing.

Click here for Adobe Photoshop CS2! .If you have Adobe Photoshop, you might want to read the optimizing images tutorial at http://catalyst.washington.edu/catalyst/how-to/scanning/minimizeImages.html which has excellent step-by-step instructions.

There are also free online tools. Netmechanic offers free sample use of GifBot, at http://www.netmechanic.com/products/GIFbot_FreeSample.shtml, which displays optimized versions of any image you upload, ranging from 90 percent down to 10 percent compression. MyImager, at http://www.myimager.com, is an online image editor with many different effects options, plus the capability to reduce colors in gifs and reduce quality in jpg format. There are many others – just search for “online image optimizer” in Google for more options.

One caveat – never optimize the original image!
Save a copy instead, and optimize that version so the original is always available in the future if you need it again.

Re-Using Images:
A common mistake among web hosting beginners is uploading the same image into multiple image folders. If your web site has several different directories, each with its own image folder, it might seem logical to upload the logo.gif into each image folder and call it into a page with a link relative to that directory. But consider – if you do this, then your server must reload the logo image every time a visitor moves from one directory on your site to another. Instead, use the same image path every time you use the image. That way, the server loads just one image which is then cached on the visitor’s computer and re-used for each page that displays it. This can greatly improve page load time if you have a number of common images, such as a logo or menu buttons.

Choose the Right Image Format:
Most web images are created as either gif files or jpg (or jpeg) files. There are pros and cons to both. Basically, gifs are best for simple graphics or line drawings. They can be created with a transparent background or used in simple animations and are often optimized by reducing the use of colors. The jpg format is better for photographs or full color images, but cannot be animated or used with a transparent background. For more detailed information on this topic, including side-by-side sample images, read David Eisenberg’s informative article, “Why Good Images Go Bad – A Guide to Effective Use of Images on Your Website” at http://www.catcode.com/imgguide/index

Some basic features that are common to all CMSes:

Separation of content, structure and design

A CMS improves the lifecycle of your website for years to come. The “look and feel” of your site can be changed or relaunched, leaving existing content and page architecture untouched. No need to worry about copying and pasting content into another site, simply publish your new design and the CMS will pull the content into the new look.

Easy content production, no programming skills required

If you can use a computer, you can manage the content for your website. Using a graphical user interface, authors can simply create text, insert images an multimedia files, schedule content (and much more) to build and maintain a dynamic website.

Just imagine: You will never need to make another menu button again, or pay a web designer to do it for you. Each time you add or change a page, the menu will automatically update to reflect the change. Having to learn or purchasing photo editing software will not be necessary. You can upload images straight to the web from your digital camera / DV camera or a scanner.

Common advantages of a CMS:

• Decentralized maintenance.
  Typically based on a common web browser. Edit anywhere, anytime. Bottlenecks removed.
• Designed with non-technical content editors in mind.

  People with average knowledge of word processing can create the content easily. No HTML skills required.

• Configurable access restrictions.
  Users are assigned roles and permissions that prevent them from touching content in which they are not authorized to change.
• Consistency of design is preserved.
  Because content is stored separate from design, the content from all authors is presented with the same, consistent design.
• Navigation is automatically generated.

  Menus are typically generated automatically based on the database content and links will not point to nonexistent pages.

• Content is stored in a database.
  Central storage means that content can be reused in many places on the website and formatted for multiple devices (web browser, mobile phone/WAP, PDA, printer).
• Dynamic content.
  Extensions like forums, polls, shopping carts, search engines, news management are typically drop-in modules. A good CMS also allows for truly user defined extensions.
• Daily updates.

  You do not need to involve web designers or programmers for every little modification - you are in control of your website.

• Cooperation.
  Encourages faster updates, enforces accountability for content editors via log files and promotes cooperation between authors.
• Content scheduling.
  Content publication can often be time-controlled; hidden for previews; or require a user login with password.

It is estimated that about 70 million domains are currently under registration from ICANN. It is further estimated that there are virtually no one and very few two-word phrases left in the English dictionary. This means that web site owners are going to either need to come up with some very creative words, which are not real words, or they are going to need to come up with very long domain names, which may be difficult to spell or have a high risk of mistyping by a user.

What does all this mean to the web site owner who is concerned with getting traffic to their new site? It may require more SEO work and less traditional advertising to get users to come to your web site. Why is this? In the past you could create a brand around one word, such as Yahoo, or Boston, and with a good marketing effort, have users simply remember your web site, type in your domain name and go to the site. This is not going to be the case with newer sites, as the domains names are going to get longer, and the extensions are not going to be limited to .com, .net and .org, but rather a plethora of domain name extensions will be needed.

So what is a web site owner to do? The marketing of sites will now fall to developing great content, getting others to link to you, making sure the web sites are defined properly and not allowing for sloppy programming. There is also the avenue of paid search, where no single keyword or keyword phrase is owned by a single person in perpetuity, but rather many companies can bid for the same term and based on a variety of bid management techniques and better copyrighting, you can purchase web site clicks.

The world is changing, and we are quickly becoming more and more a wireless web-based society. As such, TV, radio and print commercials have less of an impact on how we find the web sites we want to visit, but it seems as though the large consumption of domain names over the past decade may move us into that new medium far quicker than some of us might like. On the other hand, if you are skilled at SEO and SEM, you may be positioned to be a leader in an industry that you simply could not have bought your way into just six years ago.

Load your page with keywords. Keywords are the terms your customers are likely to use when searching. If you sell antique model cars and you just have pictures on your home page, you’re not likely to get a single hit. Number one in search engine tips: include written content on your home page that uses the term “antique model cars” often, and your ranking will go up, often way up.

Getting higher search engine placement is very difficult—with thousands of sites competing for search engine ranking on any given topic—but not impossible.

Search engine ranking is a science, and requires a thorough understanding of the quirks of that particular crawler and the way it indexes sites.

Google tends to give a better search engine ranking to those with a thorough link system. This is because it views the link as a sign of the site’s credibility and popularity—and thus awards a more prominent search engine ranking. But your link system should reflect both quantity and quality.

You achieve more successful search engine ranking if prominent and well-respected sites (with a high search engine ranking of their own) chose to link to you.

Google also puts of a lot of weight into the title of a page, the text between the
HTML tags in the section of your web page. To get a good search engine ranking, that text should include your keywords.

Google also puts a lot of emphasis in keyword density when it computes search engine ranking. This means developing your content and using keyword-laden links. If you sell chocolate wedding souvenirs, a website with a link stating “chocolate wedding souvenirs” pointing at your site will give your website a higher search engine ranking than a link that says “click here.”

Contrary to rumor, disabling the cache of pages won’t affect your search engine ranking on Google. And unlike in other crawlers, your Google search engine ranking won’t be pulled down by using dynamic pages/. Just make sure that you have a link to those pages somewhere on your site so Google can find it.

Google also indexes ALT tags on images, so to get a better search engine ranking, include ALT tags and throw in a few keywords! Google ignores META tags so don’t bother optimizing this tag as it won’t help your search engine ranking.

You should also download the Google Toolbar so you can see the search engine rank of every page that you visit. Just be careful because it tracks all pages you visit when it’s open, so restrict its use when you want to check a particular search engine ranking.

If you are promoting your graphic design business and have a page on business card design, stay on the topic and refrain from using a page title such as “Graphic Design company in Vancouver, Canada – business cards, logos, letterheads”. Your want the business card design to be the most important key phrase.

There are two main reasons for content relevancy. The first is so that visitors have an easy time understanding the flow of your web site. Visitors who have to search through multiple pages to find the information they’re looking for won’t be visitors much longer. The average web site user takes about three seconds to decide whether or not stay on a site. A clear idea of what your site is about should be apparent immediately, followed by easy navigation to other pages that display further topics in more detail.

The second reason for keeping content relevant throughout your web site is for search engine algorithms. Keyword relevancy is an important part of search engine optimization. The more relevant your web site’s content is for a specific term, the more likely the site is to show up near the top of search results for the term.

Keyword density is another big deal with search engines. There is an optimal ratio of key terms to the overall amount of text that must be used for search engine optimization purposes. The more unrelated terms that are used consistently throughout the content will bring down the percentage of more important keywords. Keyword density matters throughout an entire web site, not just on certain pages.

Other areas to keep an eye on are the contact page, about us page, and any other pages that you may not think are important to have optimized for search engines such as advertising info, privacy policy, etc. For instance, some web sites have pages devoted to reciprocal links. There’s nothing wrong with them unless you link out to a lot of unrelated web sites. The keywords that are used in the anchor text and surrounding description text will detract from your overall site content if they are not related. Incoming links from unrelated sites are fine, but keep in mind that the links page counts as part of your web site as a whole.

Consider using a reciprocal links page as more of a resource for visitors instead of a long list of irrelevant sites. This not only appeases search engines but your visitors as well. And as mentioned before, both visitors and search engines should be kept in mind when creating web site content.

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5. Believing the hype

And yes, I do mean the hype promoted by your own program. Those income projections that every program makes are just that, projections. You can make that much. Will you within your first few months of the program? Probably not. Look at this as a long term investment in your future, not a way to get rich quick. Believe in yourself and your ability to make your dreams come true. But don’t believe the hype.

4. Expecting instant results with little effort

Expect to work your business. And expect to work it daily. If you opened your own neighborhood store, you’d expect to have to go in to work daily, wouldn’t you? You’d expect to have to advertise and get people to come to your store. Well, you just opened your own brand new internet store, what are you going to do to make it work? How are you going to get people to come look at your product?

3. Lack of a plan and specific goals

You’ve probably heard the saying, plan your work and work your plan. You need to have a specific plan and clear, measurable goals. Many people join affiliate programs with the vague goal of wanting to make a lot of money. How much money? How quickly do you want it? (Try to be realistic here, making a million dollars in one month is not realistic.) Okay, you have your clear, specific goal. Now how are you going to get there. Again, think clear, specific steps here.

2. Advertising your affiliate link

Wait a minute, if you don’t advertise your affiliate link, how are you supposed to get sales and downline members? Create your own website that has a link to your affiliate program. Every affiliate for your program gets the same website that you do. You have to be able to make yourself different from everyone else. The way you do that is with your own website.

1. Quitting

You’ve been working your affiliate program for 2, 3, maybe even 4 months now with very little to show for it. You’re getting discouraged and beginning to wonder if this is worth it after all. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and figure out what it is you need to be doing. Learn more. Bug your sponsor and your upline members until they help you out. Don’t quit. No one ever achieved success by quitting. Neither will you.